You're actually technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect!). If beating a specific team has a negative value, it could absolutely be the case that Beat Crean > Beat Everyone.

For example -- imagine that your second favorite B1G team is Norwestern (as it probably should be). In that case, beating everyone would include beating Michigan. That clearly has a negative value from the point of view of a Michigan fan. In that case, I think it would be safe to say that (Northwestern) beating Crean > (Northwestern) beating everyone.

We did it the last time we won the outright championship but there were two more games, two fewer teams and no Izzo, Crean or Ryan back then. We lost to Knight (I mean Mr. Knight or Coach Knight) in the hexed Assembly Hall and at Northwestern (after travelling through a blizzard to get there)

Our odds of accumulating a record in our own ten best in the history of the program is fairly good, I would say, at this juncture:

RECORD

Illinois

Indiana

PROBABILITY (EST.)

(15-3)

0.65

0.84

54.60%

(14-4)

0.65

0.16

10.40%

(14-4)

0.35

0.84

29.40%

(13-5)

0.35

0.16

5.60%

The 15-3 row is our estimated shot at winning out, followed by the scenarios of beating Illinois but losing to Indiana and then vice versa. The last row is the relatively unlikely scenario of losing out. By the numbers, we've put up one of the best performances of any Michigan team almost regardless at this point.

"Funny isn't it, how naughty dentists always make that one fatal mistake."

In that media guide, I found another reason to hope that Michigan can win the title outright this year. The Wolverines now have 14 Big Ten basketball championships. That's one more than the 13 that MSU has.

That was my first year in Ann Arbor. Indiana had its usual help from the officials at Assembly Hall. I remember Penn State in particular getting some rough calls against them when they were surprisingly in the game late.

Not sure we crush Illinois. Kenpom 25 defense, at their home and our defense has the ability to make their offense and guys like Rice, Abrams, Hill and Nunn look like superstars. Still think we pull it out as our length on the perimeter and offensive firepower will be too much.

Yeah, Lunardi (FWIW, which is not all that much) has us at #10 overall currently. One of the teams ahead of us is Wisconsin, so presumably if we can win the BTT tournament too we'd pass them. There's not much difference between 2/3 but it'd be a nice thing to have.

Because this is the most ignorant statement if you actually think this.

People act like it's a sin to take their Final Four run from last year into account when talking about THIS year's team and they returned almost everyone.

Wichita State is more legitimate than ANY team in the B1G. They also may be the safest Final 4 pick in the country.

Would the be undefeated in another conference? Hell no. But is any other team undefeated in the conference?

They absolutely should be mentioned in the same breath as the best teams in the country.

This isn't football and they're not Northern Illinois.

“True loyalty is that quality of service that grows under adversity and expands in defeat. Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise — the other, loyalty.”

Michigan lost WAY more in Burke, THJ and McGary from last year and I don't hear anyone calling us overrated or a fluke.

The Shockers returned their core, many of whom were young (like Michigan), and blitzed through their regular season for the most part.

They're still playing high level basketball and they still look like the same or even better team than last year.

Again, no one is saying they're world beaters. But some of you are acting like they're terrible because of their conference.

Memphis under Cal for years ran through their awful conference and I seem to remember them having some legit teams come tourney time. UNLV back in the 90s, same thing.

Basketball is SO much different than football when it comes to this stuff and so many people can't see that. Like I said, this isn't Northern Illinois.

Now how are they going to respond in the Elite 8, Final Four when they're in a close game vs. another good team? THAT is where the weak conference season hurts them. But it doesn't make them overrated, a fluke or anything of the sort.

“True loyalty is that quality of service that grows under adversity and expands in defeat. Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise — the other, loyalty.”

I'm not saying they aren't good. I'm saying using last year's final four run to say this team is good is ridiculous. They lost 3 of their top 5 scorers. Those same 3 guys were also in the top 5 minutes played for them. They "really only lost Armstead" the same way Michigan "really only lost Burke" from last year's team.

Wichita State went in there and won on the road. That's as good as any of our wins. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if Wichita State could have put up a 15-3 or 14-4 record in the B1G. Undefeated, no way. But I'd rather face Kansas than Wichita.

Kansas scares me WAYYYYY more. There is no way we can guard their bits without McGary, they score what like 60+ points in the paint against us last year and you could argue that they are BETTER inside this year and we don't have Burke to bail us out. I want no part of Kansas and their size, bring on the Shockers or Syracuse maybe even AZ but not Kansas.

Wichita St has an average margin of victory around 14-15 points. They haven't been sneaking by on a poor schedule.
I heard a good analogy regarding Wichita St the other day, they are similar to Indiana St but instead of one great player they have a good team. I think Indiana St faired ok back in '79 as an unknown commodity heading into the tourney.

I don't think Indiana St was an unknown commodity heading into the tourney. They were a #1 seed, had a first team all-american who was the 6th pick in the 1978 NBA draft but decided to come back for his last year at ISU.

Now granted the amount of media wasn't nearly as big as it is now, but it's not like ISU was a low seed who made it to the title game.

I am pretty sure Michigan has never won both the regular season as well as the Big Ten Tournament, and I suspect that it has happened on only a few occasions (LSA usually has this kind of info at his disposal).

Winning the Big Ten tournament would also probably get Michigan a 2 seed, just about regardless of what happens the next 2 games. But winning these would likely indicate that the team is playing very well.

I obviously hope that we win out, but as long as we beat that asshat Tom Crean, I will have zero complaints. I hope we take Indiana to the woodshed and beat them senseless. And while it seems likely that Indiana is not heading for the tournament at this point, I hope we get to be the team that puts the final nail in their coffin.

Attention campers. Lunch is cancelled due to lack of hustle. Deal with it.

...we haven't put together a complete half of basketball in a long time. We've had spurts, but I'd like to see us play a complete game or even a complete half.

The only solace I get is that we really didn't play a complete half last year for 10-12 games either. In fact, it wasn't until the VCU game in the tournament where we finally started to put some things together. Then of course the Florida and Syracuse games. And even Louisville until the officials robbed us of a shot at a championship,

“True loyalty is that quality of service that grows under adversity and expands in defeat. Any street urchin can shout applause in victory, but it takes character to stand fast in defeat. One is noise — the other, loyalty.”